My phone was ringing on Thursday morning. I looked at the clock; it was 8:35. The caller ID let me know it was Maryann Brucia Barbis. “Are you watching Channel 2 right now?” I replied I wasn’t watching anything at the moment. With a rather insistent tone I was urged to watch an interview that Norah O’Donnell and Charlie Rose were conducting with an author who was promoting her article about overprotective parents. Maryann said, “They are downplaying abductions!”
I turned on the TV too late to hear the interview but I found it on YouTube. The author, Hanna Rossin, had written an article for Atlantic Monthly about the harms, both physical and emotional, that are done to children by overprotective parents. Helicopter parents and grandparents, Munchausen by proxy-we know about these issues. I have a friend who taught a college course in engineering who had received calls from parents wanting him to change the grades of their sophomore son. In the teaching profession, calls from parents challenging awards of grades and offering excuses for poor performance by their child were to be expected.
Each member of this triumvirate took turns presenting information that supported the issue at hand. Ms. Rossin posited how these parents were “harming the intelligence and independence” of their children, how children’s creativity was being stunted, how parents today are too “preoccupied with safety.” Ms. O’Donnell noted how playgrounds were made safer. It was pointed out that we live in a “lawsuit culture.” Charlie Rose talked about how growing up in a small town with “no one constantly surveilling you” was the rule for the time. So far this was going down some well-travelled roads.
And then…
It was said by the author “the stranger danger idea is just not true, …your children will not be abducted, …you have no greater chance of being abducted now than in the 70’s”. Was this disregard for the National Incidence Statistics of Missing, Runaway and Throwaway Children (NISMART) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) statistical analysis of data which reports over 21,000 children are abducted annually by complete strangers?
By the way, in 1970 the US population was slightly over 204 million; in 2014 our country holds over 317.7 million citizens. So by the very expression used, “no greater chance”, doesn’t this translate to more children being abducted on a yearly basis?
Case Analysis Unit analysts of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) recorded more 9,000 confirmed attempted child abductions by someone unknown to the child from February 2005 through January 2014. The site also noted over 2 million reports of child sexual exploitation in 2013, an alarmingly steep increase over the past decade.
“Your child will not be abducted”. A quick search of attempted abductions in 2014 on the internet reveals the following on the first two pages alone:
January 6: attempted abductions in Seattle, WA
January 17: attempted abduction of adult females in Santa Monica, CA
January 14 and 21: 3 attempted abduction of children in Gavinnett, GA
February 11 and 14: attempted abductions of 3 girls and 2 twelve year old boys in Arvada, CO
FEBRUARY 19: ABDUCTION AND MURDER OF HAILEY OWENS, SPRINGFIELD, MO
March 14: attempted abduction in South County, NV
March 17: attempted abduction in Troy, IL
Les Standiford, with Detective Sergeant Joe Matthews, wrote Bringing Adam Home-The Abduction That Changed America. The dedication includes “all the sons and daughters taken long before their time.” A quote from Dylan Thomas, “After the first death, there are no others,” opens the text. The book recounts the impact of abduction of the family of John and Reve Walsh and then on the nation by the abduction and murder of their 6-yer old son, Adam on July 27, 1981. The circuitous route to the family’s closure is traced in the pages of this story. Adam was taken by a drifter, pedophile, serial killer that, when in custody, confessed to numerous killings, even talking about how he wished to tell John Walsh face to face what he did and then saying how he wanted to kill John in the same way.
If the idea and the reality of abduction is a “freakish occurrence”, why did John Walsh create the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children? Why are there government reports of over 800,000 missing children a year? Why, from 1999-2002, did NISMART report over 58,000 abductions by strangers? What makes these numbers invalid?
Oh, by the way, how about a call to the family of Carlie Brucia, the family of Leiby Kletzky, the family of Hailey Owens and the family of Jessica Ridgeway, just to name a few, and tell them how their child’s abduction and murder was just a “freakish occurrence.” The segment downplayed what for many of us is an “oh no moment” Our pain has not evaporated; in quiet moments we do feel the tightening of our hearts, feel the urge to avenge our lost children when new reports of these “freakish occurrences” are splashed across the news media.
You all know of our vision: making children self-reliant by instilling in them stranger safety awareness skills. Simple and straight forward.
After watching and re-watching this news segment, I believe the families of all children who have been abducted are due a sincere apology for the affront condescending report produced.
Be safe. Watch out for “freakish occurrences.” (sarcasm implied)